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Commentary

Taking Risks, Taking Responsibility

By
Guy Calvert

This commentary appeared in the Las Vegas Review Journal
on June 20, 1999.

In the film Gattaca, two brothers compete against each other in a
futuristic brave new world. Each day as they grow up together, they
swim stroke for stroke out into the sea, each striving to outlast
the other. It is a game of chicken; if one gets scared or cannot
continue, he turns back to shore, vanquished.

The naturally conceived Vincent, plagued by congenital disorders
and doomed to mediocrity, seems no match for his
genetically-screened younger brother, Anton, whose superb DNA
promises him a bright athletic and intellectual future. Although
Vincent becomes increasingly determined to win the contest, he is
consistently beaten in the water as in all else. For many years, as
expected, Anton is the undisputed champion.

Until one day, when, incredibly, Anton falls behind, struggles
and very nearly drowns. Now Vincent, in saving his brother’s life,
is transformed by a new confidence. His victory becomes a
springboard from which his once hopeless dreams suddenly seem
possible. Leaving home, he assumes a new genetic identity and dares
to contest a prize reserved by society for a carefully bred
elite.

As the story unfolds, the brothers are reunited, and we learn of
Anton’s bitterness and self-disgust in defeat. Demanding
satisfaction, he returns with Vincent to the beach, intending to
set matters straight. But again, after an Olympian struggle,
Vincent proves victorious. Anton, humiliated but still incredulous,
pleads with his “inferior” sibling to explain how he could twice
outdo him. Vincent’s answer is inspiringly simple: “I never saved
anything for the swim back.”

A heroic battle against the odds, or a reckless gamble? In truth
it is both at once, and therein lies the point.

Vincent is not the typical gambler, spinning wheels or shooting
craps. And yet he gambles, risking death for a slim chance of a
meaningful life, and at lousy odds. To many of us, there is
something stirring in his determination to fight the “percentage,”
a defiant expression of an indomitable human spirit. We understand
that, while the risk of failure is great — and the consequences
are terrible — sometimes, at least, fortune favors the bold. As
Vincent insists, “It is possible.”

This is not to get caught up in romanticism but simply to
acknowledge that Vincent’s choice is, for good or ill, his own. The
wisdom of his choice, which affects him so personally, is entirely
a subjective matter. But in a free society, it is and must be his
choice to make.

It seems only fair that the same freedom should extend to other
types of gamblers. But not everyone agrees. A blue ribbon
commission on gambling with heavy Religious Right representation is
about to recommend further restrictions on gambling.

The public conflict over gambling animates a larger debate that
is of crucial importance to all Americans. On one side is the view
that, in some situations, individuals cannot be trusted to face the
personal consequences of their own decisions and so cannot be held
accountable when things go wrong. Therefore, in the public
interest, government officials must decide for them.

Weighing in on the other side of the argument are those who,
like former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern, are
concerned about a general decline of tolerance. In the New York
Times, McGovern eloquently took to task

“those who would deny others the choice to eat meat,
wear fur, drink coffee or simply eat extra-large portions of food.
While on any day each of us may identify with the restrictive
nature of a given campaign, there is a much larger issue here.
Where do we draw the line on dictating to each other? How many of
these battles can we stand? Whose values should
prevail?”

Americans must resist this presumption: that the voluntary
choices of consenting adults are a matter for the state to tolerate
sometimes but to outlaw when politically expedient. As the
19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill declared, “Over himself,
over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” To depart
from that standard is to put at risk our inheritance, the tradition
of individual liberty upon which America was founded. And that
would indeed be a reckless gamble.